Orestes and the Erinyes
After killing Clytemnestra to avenge Agamemnon, Orestes is pursued by the Erinyes for the blood crime of murdering his own mother.
The Story
Orestes returned to Mycenae to avenge the murder of his father Agamemnon.
He killed Aegisthus.
He also killed his mother, Clytemnestra.
That second killing transformed the meaning of his revenge.
Orestes had fulfilled his obligation to punish his father's murderer, but in doing so he had committed one of the gravest crimes within a Greek family: the killing of a parent.
The Erinyes pursued him.
These ancient goddesses were associated especially with blood crimes committed within families.
To them, Orestes' motive did not erase the fact that he had shed his mother's blood.
Orestes therefore became trapped between two obligations.
If he refused to avenge Agamemnon, he failed his father.
If he obeyed the demand for vengeance and killed Clytemnestra, he became guilty before the Erinyes.
In Aeschylus' version of the story, Apollo had supported Orestes' vengeance and continued to defend him afterward.
Orestes sought purification and protection, but the Erinyes would not simply abandon their claim.
They followed him from place to place.
The conflict could no longer be solved by another killing.
Orestes eventually travelled to Athens and appealed to Athena.
There the question would change.
Instead of asking who should take revenge next, the story would ask who had the authority to judge the crime.
Key Figures
Why It Matters
The pursuit of Orestes exposes the central contradiction in the House of Atreus: one act of family vengeance creates another blood crime. The myth prepares the transition from inherited revenge to formal judgment in the Trial of Orestes.
Traditions & Variations
The Erinyes' pursuit is especially important in Aeschylus' Oresteia. Other ancient treatments of Orestes differ in the nature of his madness, purification, wanderings and eventual release from the consequences of matricide.